380 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



occupied Europe along with Palaeolithic man during the last 

 interglacial epoch, disappeared from our fauna before the close 

 of the succeeding glacial era — some of them retiring to more 

 southern climes, others dying out altogether. Even the arctic 

 or northern group, which at the climax of glacial cold had 

 sought refuge in the south, had slowly migrated north again 

 with the return of more clement climatic conditions, so that 

 when Neolithic man made his appearance the temperate fauna 

 had once more come into possession of Central Europe. The 

 last glimpse we obtain of Palaeolithic man is in Southern 

 France, where the reindeer and its alpine and northern 

 congeners were his companions ; the first glimpse we get of 

 his Neolithic successor is in Middle Europe, from which the 

 northern fauna and flora had already taken their departure. 

 " Speaking in general terms," says Professor Dawkins, " the 

 wild fauna of Europe as we have it now dates from the begin- 

 ning of the Prehistoric [Neolithic] Age, and consists merely of 

 those animals which were able to survive the changes by which 

 their Pleistocene congeners were banished or destroyed. The 

 arrival of the domestic animals under the care of man in the 

 Neolithic Age, and their extension over the whole of Europe in 

 a wild or semi- wild state, coupled with the disappearance of the 

 wild species [which were contemporaneous with Palaeolithic 

 man], constitute a change as important as any of those which 

 define the Meiocene from the Pleiocene, or the Pleiocene from 

 the Pleistocene Periods." 



